Chavez minister vows more Venezuela radio closings * Radio stations to be pulled after 34 closed in August * Critics say hits free speech, government says democratic * Anti-Chavez TV network in the spotlight over coup rumor CARACAS, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Venezuela will pull the plug on 29 more radio stations, a top official in President Hugo Chavez's government said on Saturday, just weeks after dozens of other outlets were closed in a media clampdown. Infrastructure Minister Diosdado Cabello closed 34 radio stations in July, saying the government was "democratizing" media ownership.....

The efficacy of Catholic schools in urban neighborhoods has been documented time and again, beginning with James S. Coleman's landmark studies in the 1980s. His findings were so devastating at the time that the public-school establishment panicked. School officials heatedly claimed that Mr. Coleman's results were flawed because public schools had to take everyone while Catholic schools could select more talented students -- or at least those who came from more stable homes. But the economist Derek Neal exploded that myth in the 1990s, showing definitively that Catholic-school methods are both class- and color-blind. The stereotypical product of a poor,...

Gun Sales Thriving In Uncertain Times By Fredrick Kunkle Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, October 27, 2008; Page A01 Americans have cut back on buying cars, furniture and clothes in a tough economy, but there's one consumer item that's still enjoying healthy sales: guns. ...SNIP... Several variables drive sales, but many dealers, buyers and experts attribute the increase in part to concerns about the economy and fears that if Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois wins the presidency, he will join with fellow Democrats in Congress to enact new gun controls. ...SNIP... "Even though [Obama] has a lot going for him,...

NEW YORK, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Standard & Poor's on Thursday slashed its ratings on the New York Times Co (NYT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) into junk territory and cited concerns about the newspaper publisher's revenue outlook, after it posted a third-quarter loss. ...SNIP... It cut the Times' rating three notches to "BB-minus," three levels below investment grade, from "BBB-minus." The outlook is negative, indicating an additional cut may be likely over the next one-to-two years.

BookTV/C-Span2 HEADSUP!!! Tune in at 11:15 PM EASTERN or set your TIVO/DVD Recorder. FR's own "LS" and his latest work-product (book) will be the topic of a segment on BookTV (45 min. in duration). IF you miss this first broadcast, please go to the BookTV/C-Span2 page linked for future date/time of rebroadcasts.

In the fall of 1907, it took J.P. Morgan just eight weeks to resolve a credit crisis similar to ours. Several years of buoyant growth and too much risk-taking in poorly understood investments led to needs for capital that could not be met. Morgan, then 70, locked the nation's top bankers into the ornate library at his home for late-night confession sessions. He asked them to lay bare their balance sheets, keeping himself alert with endless Havana cigars. snip We also seem to have forgotten a basic point well known to Morgan, who would have recalled the panics of 1837,...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The head of the US financial regulator SEC has blamed a voluntary monitoring program for major investment banks as a cause of the global financial crisis and said he was shutting the program down. "The last six months have made it abundantly clear that voluntary regulation does not work," the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Christopher Cox, said in a statement released Friday.

This is a TV-headsup...set your DVRs for midnight EASTERN 8-4-08... (that's when Sunday turns into Monday!). I watched the first airing of this long interview (approx. 3 hours) of Col. Ralph Peters (US Army, ret.) at 11AM Eastern today. I recommend it for anyone interested in The War on Terror, military intelligence, history, politics, the US military and the craft of writing. I will post the BookTV summation of the show in a soon-to-follow post on this thread.

Safety Group Urges Airbus Fixes LOS ANGELES -- U.S. aviation safety watchdogs, concerned about severe electrical problems that have blacked out cockpit displays on dozens of Airbus jetliners over the years, urged regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to mandate aircraft fixes and enhanced pilot training to alleviate such hazards. Recommendations released by the National Transportation Safety Board Wednesday cite 49 incidents over the years in which electrical problems caused various cockpit displays on widely-used Airbus A319 and A320 to suddenly stop functioning and temporarily go blank during flight. According to the board, seven of those incidents resulted in...

This is a "heads-up" for presentations on what sound like promising books (well, in my humble opinion). I'll post fuller info below, but the books are: If By Sea: The Forging of the American Navy - from the Revolution to the War of 1812 The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America's Finest Hour "Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad"

Excerpt: Missouri's gubernatorial candidates are competing in a one-upsmanship contest to appear tough on illegal immigrants. SNIP Republican Gov. Matt Blunt and his Democratic challenger, Attorney General Jay Nixon, each announced a series of initiatives against illegal immigrants last week. Their actions underscore how illegal immigration has become a hot issue in U.S. politics. SNIP From their flurry of proposals, Missourians might get the impression that illegal immigration is big problem in this state. The Pew Hispanic Center, a Washington-based research organization, used census figures to estimate there are 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States - an amount...

excerpt: A head-on collision Friday night on Route VV at Wildwood Street injured one motorist and resulted in a four-hour search for the other driver, who was later identified as an illegal immigrant. (big snip) Meyers (of the Missouri Highway Patrol) said experiences such as the one he had Friday night, going house to house to find evidence of someone without proper documentation, has opened his eyes to the magnitude of the immigration problem in Mid-Missouri. "You’d be surprised. We noticed just a few years back we were regularly coming in contact with undocumented people in the community. Now it’s...

Debate on Dinesh D'Souza's "What's So Great About Christianity?" Authors: Dinesh D'Souza; Christopher Hitchens; Marvin Olasky Upcoming Schedule (broadcast on BookTV, i.e., C-Span 2) via TV/Cable: Friday, November 23, at 12:30 AM (EASTERN) (equivalent to 11:30 PM CENTRAL TONIGHT 11-22-07) (OR, push red "Watch" /"Watch Now" button to view in Real Player; audio works even with VOA's dial-up connection although vido is virtually just a series of still images. "VOA" does not know how long BookTV will keep this debate available through this convenient route.) About the Program From The King's College in New York, Dinesh D'Souza, author of "What's...

About the Program M. Stanton Evans argues that Joseph McCarthy does not deserve the bad reputation he has been assigned by historians. Mr. Evans says that McCarthy was correct in his assessment of the threat posed by Communists in the United States during the so-called "Red Scare" and that his detractors knowingly covered up the extent of this threat.

This is just a television heads-up for the last episode of the first airing of PBS/Ken Burns production "The War". (VOA's boilerplate from prior threads) All commentary regarding personal experience, family tales of WWII, and critique of how Burns (and PBS) handles topics are welcome. Hopefully the threads on the seven episodes will serve as guides when this large documentary becomes required viewing in high schools. Comments on how Burns handled the documenatry (positive, negative, or neutral) will come in handy when "the younger generation" sees the series. Especially if Burns takes a "Smithsonian" tact to some topics...leaving people to...

Please see following posts for URL links to the discussion threads for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the series. (VOA's boilerplate from prior threads) All commentary regarding personal experience, family tales of WWII, and critique of how Burns (and PBS) handles topics are welcome. Hopefully the threads on the seven episodes will serve as guides when this large documentary becomes required viewing in high schools. Comments on how Burns handled the documenatry (positive, negative, or neutral) will come in handy when "the younger generation" sees the series. Especially if Burns takes a "Smithsonian" tact to some topics...leaving...

Please see following posts for URL links to the discussion threads for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the series. (VOA's boilerplate from prior threads) All commentary regarding personal experience, family tales of WWII, and critique of how Burns (and PBS) handles topics are welcome. Hopefully the threads on the seven episodes will serve as guides when this large documentary becomes required viewing in high schools. Comments on how Burns handled the documenatry (positive, negative, or neutral) will come in handy when "the younger generation" sees the series. Especially if Burns takes a "Smithsonian" tact to some topics...leaving...

Please see following posts for URL links to the discussion threads for Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the series. (VOA's boilerplate from prior threads) All commentary regarding personal experience, family tales of WWII, and critique of how Burns (and PBS) handles topics are welcome. Hopefully the threads on the seven episodes will serve as guides when this large documentary becomes required viewing in high schools. Comments on how Burns handled the documenatry (positive, negative, or neutral) will come in handy when "the younger generation" sees the series. Especially if Burns takes a "Smithsonian" tact to some topics...leaving people...

"Band of Brothers" is airing now (Saturday, 12:30PM Central) on The History Channel. Interesting that it should air on the weekend following the airing of the first four parts of Ken Burns'/PBS's "The War". Opinions about the relative merits of the two WWII-ear shows are welcome. ee following posts for URLs for the discussion threads for Parts 1-4 of "The War".